What Was In Your Mailbox Today??

A whole lotta art going on within the narrow confines of that stamp. The typefaces, the swirl of the pound.... Quite nice, Stallzer!

Among other things, today I received two additions to my collection of postcards written in Volapük. Both were sent by Ludwig Zamponi in Graz, Austria, to F. L. Hutchins (Lepenädan volapükakluba nolümelopik = Secretary General of the North American Volapük Society) in Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1892. These were the least expensive Volapük postcards that I've ever managed to find: only US $3.74 for the pair, including postage and tax.

Erilaz - Thanks for sharing. I had to lookup what Volapuk was and I learned something new. Quite interesting.

Well, a few days ago. A belated Christmas gift from my daughter, delayed when the Italian seller stopped shipments to the UK because of Covid problems. This is Umarell, a Bolognese word for the retired men who stand in characteristic pose gazing at people working, often offering unsought advice. He is, therefore, both a grumpy old man like me and a grumpy old man whose presence spurs the worker on to greater efforts. My performance on The Sunday Times cryptic crosswords has already improved since he arrived.

Hello.
I have opened it now and there was this. The Italian postage are parts I was looking for.
Regards.

Received a letter from Canada today.
It seems my postie is going to be changed soon. :(

Received several glassines of Hungary stamps plus a couple of Victoria Canada stamps. Soon to be a post in the "What did you do today..." thread. Getting to the point in my Hungary collection where used and mint hinged are the predominant purchasing choices because of availability, not necessarily price.

We had a discussion a while ago on unusually high face value postage due stamps, and I wondered why they were necessary in that if you had enormously high face value postage due stamps in relation to the prevailing letter rate, it seemed to me that they would only be necessary to go on very heavy packages, and if you had a very heavy package you would almost certainly have to take it to the post office to be weighed, and then, how on Earth could anyone involved somehow forget to put the stamps on? It turns out that in some cases, in particular Italian 50 and 100 lire postage dues from 1884-1903, they were used for internal accounting. All this leads to some covers I received in the mail today, unfortunately I was not able to upload the images, but there are four of them all mailed from within the United Kingdom around mid-1988, and all to the same address, a Public Affairs company in London, WC1. All four envelopes are identical, business size, 215 x 110 mm, and all bearing a box saying Business reply service, and a license number, in other words, business reply mail envelopes, the kind we all get in the mail quite often, from companies wanting our business enough to enclose an envelope in which you can mail back your reply free of charge to you. All four of these covers bear GB postage due stamps from the 1982 series, issued on June 9th of that year, which included values ranging from 1P to 5 pounds, SG numbers D90 to D101. But what is curious is the very high postage due fees, ranging from the lowest being 2 pounds 69 pence to the highest at 14 pounds 79. This one has two 5 pound stamps, four one pound stamps, three 25 P stamps, and two 2 P stamps, covering almost a third of the entire cover! One clue as to why the postage due fees should have been levied in the first place is that one of the covers bears a hand written note: "Licence Cancelled", so possibly the postage was no longer free to the sender, but since someone had to pay it, it was up to the addressee, but there is still the mystery of why there was such an enormous amount due. As ordinary business size envelopes, they could not have held anything very heavy, they are not torn and show no signs of straining at the seams. That same cover also bears a hand written note saying "13 X 23 P = 2.69 pounds", possibly suggesting that there were 13 other covers bundled with it, but according to a chart in the Stanley Gibbons catalogue, this does not correspond to either the first or second class letter rate in effect at the time. So I'm completely mystified. Does anyone else have a suggestion?

I suspect the 13 x 23 p is for 13 items, not 13 additional. The 23p would include postage + business reply mail fee for one item.

The "license canceled" likely has nothing to do with the postage due, but a notice to the addressee to renew and perhaps refresh their deposit if the GB procedure is similar to the US.

Geoffha - I belatedly saw your Umarell and laughed. In construction we called them "Sidewalk Super's" which was short for sidewalk superintendents. Human behavior can be so consistent the World over.

Waddsbadds,
re postage due. You are seeing "top of the stack" pieces which contain the postage due stamps for the entire pile of reply mail. There are several threads on this board about such US uses. The math may not always work because the stack may contain envelope, cards, or other due mail, but the math is often evident on the top piece also.

John, thanks for your explanation regarding "top of the stack", it makes perfect sense since you put it that way, especially when, as you point out, the math doesn't work. I looked and there was no common denominator between any of the four amounts so, as you say the stack probably contained a mix of items at different rates. Once again thanks for clearing up the mystery for me. They're not particularly valuable items, but nevertheless intriguing, after all how often do you see over 14 pounds worth of stamps on an ordinary business envelope, so I will enjoy mounting them in the back of the book section of my GB collection.

Today arrived 15 Straits Settlements Affidavits.

Almost all with 50 cent KGV or KGVI stamp.

A nice set from the Cayman Islands finally arrived.

Most of the junk I receive in the mail has not stamps or those wretched labels which no body ever licked and can't be soaked off easily.

But once in a while when I get something from a purchase there are interesting stamps.

I do think I have a raw interesting postal history collection of covers I collected while I was a prosecuting attorney from 1977-2015, and as a defense attorney from 2015 to 2021.

I save covers, mostly legal sized, from that period of time. I think they demonstrate an bunch of interesting things - first, what I was doing, but second, the law firms, law enforcement agencies, businesses, etc., who were communicating with us through the mails. Many, too many, are metered items. But there are still lots of franked with stamps items.

I just need some advice as to how to display them. I promised my wife that this winter I would begin putting them into some sort of displayable collection and move them out of the plastic bins I have occupying too much space in the garage.

Ideas/thoughts on this? Bobby